But it was Romney who went negative first

According to Fortune the Romney camapaign is now blaming Newt Gingrich for the defeat because he went big on attacking Mitt over Bain.

The Romney campaign was well aware that Bain Capital would become a major issue in the general election. After all, the late Ted Kennedy had created the blueprint in his 1994 Senate race against Romney (the only time Romney had run against a Democrat, and lost).

What it didn’t expect, however, was that one of its primary opponents would bring the issue to the fore..

“No one in the campaign believed that Republicans would attack business enterprise in a primary contest,” explains a Romney campaign consultant who declined to be identified. “That was, in hindsight, a big mistake.”

The first jabs came from Rick Perry, who accused Romney in an early January debate of being a “vulture capitalist.” But the heavy artillery was manned by Newt Gingrich, who began accusing Romney of “looting” companies. More importantly, a super PAC supporting Gingrich released a 28-minute video titled “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” — full of ominous music and tales of woe from workers at companies acquired by Bain Capital.”

That might be so – but the Gingrich negative attacks followed an avalanche of anti-Newt ads in the Iowa caucus campaign right at the start. It was Mitt who went negative first.